2 Kings 16

Ahaz Reigns over Judah

1 In the seventeenth * year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ¹Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

2 ²Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen * years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done.

3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ³and even made his son pass through the fire, ⁴according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the sons of Israel.

4 He ⁵sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

5 Then ⁶Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged * Ahaz, ⁷but could not overcome him.

6 At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered ⁸Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of Elath entirely; and the Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

Ahaz Seeks Help of Aram

7 ⁹So Ahaz sent messengers to ¹⁰Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."

8 ¹¹Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

9 ¹²So the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ¹³captured it, and carried the people of it away into exile to ¹⁴Kir, and put Rezin to death.

Damascus Falls

10 Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ¹⁵Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to ¹⁶Urijah the priest the pattern of the altar and its model, according to all its workmanship.

11 So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus.

12 When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; then ¹⁷the king approached the altar and went up to it,

13 and burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

14 ¹⁸The bronze altar, which was before the LORD, he brought from the front of the house, from between ¹⁹his altar and the house of the LORD, and he put it on the north side of his altar.

15 Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, "Upon the great altar burn ²⁰the morning burnt offering and the evening meal offering and the king's burnt offering and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their meal offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But ²¹the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by."

16 So Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded.

17 Then King Ahaz ²²cut off the borders of the stands, and removed the laver from them; he also ²³took down the sea from the bronze oxen which were under it and put it on a pavement of stone.

18 The covered way for the sabbath which they had built in the house, and the outer entry of the king, he removed from the house of the LORD because * of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah

19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written ²⁴in the Book of the Chronicles * of the Kings of Judah?

20 So ²⁵Ahaz slept with his fathers, and ²⁶was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.

2 Kings 16 Commentary

Chapter 16

Ahaz, king of Judah, His wicked reign. (1-9) Ahaz takes a pattern from an idol's altar. (10-16) Ahaz spoils the temple. (17-20)

Verses 1-9 Few and evil were the days of Ahaz. Those whose hearts condemn them, will go any where in a day of distress, rather than to God. The sin was its own punishment. It is common for those who bring themselves into straits by one sin, to try to help themselves out by another.

Verses 10-16 God's altar had hitherto been kept in its place, and in use; but Ahaz put another in the room of it. The natural regard of the mind of man to some sort of religion, is not easily extinguished; but except it be regulated by the word, and by the Spirit of God, it produces absurd superstitions, or detestable idolatries. Or, at best, it quiets the sinner's conscience with unmeaning ceremonies. Infidels have often been remarkable for believing ridiculous falsehoods.

Verses 17-20 Ahaz put contempt upon the sabbath, and thus opened a wide inlet to all manner of sin. This he did for the king of Assyria. When those who have had a ready passage to the house of the Lord, turn it another way to please their neighbours, they are going down-hill apace to ruin.

Cross References

• 1. 2 Chronicles 28:1
• 2. 2 Chronicles 28:1-4
• 3. Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 21:6
• 4. Deuteronomy 12:31; 2 Kings 21:2, 11
• 5. Deuteronomy 12:2; 2 Kings 14:4
• 6. 2 Kings 15:37; Isaiah 7:1
• 7. 2 Chronicles 28:5, 6
• 8. 2 Kings 14:22; 2 Chronicles 26:2
• 9. 2 Chronicles 28:16
• 10. 2 Kings 15:29
• 11. 2 Kings 12:17, 18; 2 Kings 18:15
• 12. 2 Chronicles 28:21
• 13. Amos 1:3-5
• 14. Isaiah 22:6; Amos 9:7
• 15. 2 Kings 15:29
• 16. Isaiah 8:2
• 17. 2 Chronicles 26:16, 19
• 18. Exodus 27:1, 2; Exodus 40:6, 29; 2 Chronicles 4:1
• 19. 2 Kings 16:11
• 20. Exodus 29:39-41
• 21. 2 Kings 16:14
• 22. 1 Kin 7:27, 28, 38
• 23. 1 Kings 7:23, 25
• 24. 2 Chronicles 28:26
• 25. Isaiah 14:28
• 26. 2 Chronicles 28:27

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "dispossessed"
• [b]. Lit "fight"
• [c]. Heb "Eloth"
• [d]. So with some ancient versions; Heb "Edomites"
• [e]. Lit "palm"
• [f]. Lit "palm"
• [g]. Lit "likeness"
• [h]. Lit "until"
• [i]. Or "offered on it"
• [j]. Lit "offered in smoke"
• [k]. Lit "he also"
• [l]. Lit "commanded him, Urijah"
• [m]. Lit "offer in smoke"

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 16

This chapter contains the reign of Ahaz only, relates his idolatry, 2Ki 16:1-4 his hiring the king of Assyria with the treasure of the temple, and his own, to assist him against the kings of Israel and Syria, who besieged him, 2Ki 16:5-9, his seeing the altar of an idol at Damascus, the fashion of which he took, and ordered one like it to be built at Jerusalem, 2Ki 16:10-16, his defacing and removing some things in the temple, 2Ki 16:17,18, and the chapter is concluded with his death and burial, 2Ki 16:19,20.